Cooperation evident in response to mall accident

There are many partners who work together to assure the safety of the people of Marion. The partnerships vary depending on the issue. A multiagency response typically implies the event is either relatively complex or it is beyond the capacity of a single responding entity. The recent accident impacting our local mall illustrates the coordination of local Marion responders. While we all share a common mission to protect the health and safety of the public, the various partners possess unique expertise, for example fire prevention and suppression, assessment of structural compromise to a building, or prevention of communicable diseases and unintentional injuries.

As the Health Commissioner, I went to the mall the morning after the accident and met with several of the operators of the larger stores and the mall's manager. It became clear they were receiving solid communication from individual entities, but when taken together, the message was potentially confusing. One says it's OK to open based on their regulations and another says it is not OK based on their's. We are committed to improving the coordination of our communication to merchants so they better understand that only when all health and safety conditions are met can they reopen for business.

The variety of issues and responders, paired with a mutual desire to get the businesses open as soon as appropriate, drove each entity to act as efficiently as they could, individually. The fire department was an early responder and communicated the issues regarding fire safety to store operators. Merchants shared with me a degree of pride how they had been implementing their safety plans. It was clear the folks from our fire department had very effectively engaged them. Other crews were immediately hard at work digging, assessing, and repairing subterranean issues in miserable weather. My team from Marion Public Health checked the internal plumbing facilities and met with store operators to explain what needed to occur prior to their opening from our perspective. For example, where there is state code that dictates the access to toilet facilities. We offered the suggestion to acquire portable units so the stores with external doors didn't have to wait for the internal plumbing to be fixed. The plumbing is now operational and the water has been tested. The process of assuring the structural integrity of local buildings was delegated to the state and an inspector from the state determined the mall needed to have a structural engineer do an assessment and make a determination regarding structural integrity. While the health department does not have a role in making the structural determinations nor the expertise to do so, our duty to protect the public's health and safety means we will require those assurances are in place. We anticipate receiving documentation of that assessment as soon as the state gets a copy from the local structural engineer.

Ultimately, while all of us want to get the businesses open as soon as possible, we all play a role in determining when that is appropriate based on the health and safety of the public and the employees. Any one of the responding entities has authority to take action to protect the public through limiting access. It is important for the business operators to understand that none of the responding entities can override the others regarding returning that access. We all have our own expertise. This is the nature of our partnership in protecting the health and safety of Marion's people. As a relative newcomer to Marion, I was pleased to see the level of cooperation between the responding entities.